Words: Clare Roberts
Image credit: Rachel Sherlock 

4 stars 

Christopher Hall starts with a song and dance, and that energy carries throughout his set. The fact that he has dance training is obvious; he lifts each story through funny bursts of physical precision, leaving you wishing for another dance number in this stand-up set.

He addresses the confusion that his show looks like it’s called ‘pizza’ but it’s not. It’s pizazz: because that’s what he is and that’s what he has in buckets in this hilarious hour. As he struts and moves, he tells us all about the antics of himself and his best friend, Emily. From strippers to wild holidays, no subject is too risque for him to handle. 

It is clear from his crowd-work that he knows how to both craft a story and keep the audience engaged, spending more time with us in the aisle than on the stage. Multiple narrative strands are laid down early, each one looping and resurfacing with call-backs that land with a punch. The final pull-together is so well-crafted we almost didn’t see it coming. 

This show is an ode to friendship, a celebration of hedonistic days, of growing old together but never truly growing up, despite what stages of life we find ourselves in.

Christopher Hall: Pizazz 
Lounge at Gilded Balloon Teviot 
20:20 
5 – 31 Aug (not 11, 18, 25)